Dred Scott Decision Of 1857: The Lincoln-Douglas Debates Of 1860

Since its creation, the Union had always been an institution built on compromise. Over the years the Union took its bumps and bruises in numerous disagreements among the states, but was able to stay united. However, between 1857 and 1861, the Union finally began to come apart. I argue that the following events were key to this separation: The Dred Scott Decision of 1857, The Lincoln- Douglas Debates of 1858, John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, the Presidential Election of 1860, and the secession of South Carolina in 1860. The Dred Scott Decision of 1857 was announced on March 6th. This decision was made on the court case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. Dred Scott was a slave whose owner brought him from a slave state, to a free state, to

Where a not so well known Republican, Abraham Lincoln, challenged the reputable Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas, to a series of seven open-air debates to be done throughout Illinois on the issue of slavery in territories. Douglas supported popular sovereignty, which is the allowing of inhabitants of a territory to vote for or against slavery in that territory. He also held that slavery was not immoral, but thought an unsuitable labor system for some places. Lincoln, on the other hand, held that slavery was immoral, and a labor system based on greed. The main difference between Lincoln and Douglas was that Douglas believed popular sovereignty would inevitably lead to slavery ceasing on its own, while Lincoln saw the only way to end slavery was through legislation. Overall, neither Douglas nor Lincoln wanted slavery, but they differed on how to keep it out. In the second debate Senator Douglas expressed the Freeport Doctrine, which is the idea that any territory could eliminate slavery by basically refusing to authorize laws supporting it, and not enforcing

This led to a secession crisis. By February 1861, six more states from the South seceded. These seven seceded states went on to form the Confederate States of America. The president at the time, James Buchanan, refused to take action to stop them claiming that it was not up to the government to preserve the Union, because it is based on public opinion and can never be strengthened by the blood of its people shed in a war. The new president waiting to take his term in office, Abraham Lincoln, obviously very much disagreed with this statement and denied the fact that states can secede. He went, as far as to say in the eye of the Constitution and the law the Union was unbroken in his First Inaugural